Live 9 and beyond Built In Wav/Audio Editor

[rcpunker]

Would You Like for a Live 9 and Beyond Built In Wav/Audio Editor?

[Tone Deft]

no. there are many editors out there already, just hit the Edit button FFS. Ableton should focus on the DAW and live performance aspects they've already chosen to tackle.

same with an mp3 converter.

[Tarekith]

To me one of the defining charactristics of a Digital Audio Workstation is that it IS an audio editor. So I'd definitely like this, it would save having to jump back and forth between apps (or long winded workarounds) to do simple things like normalizing, adding fades permanently, specific gain changes, etc.

I used to think the last thing Live needed was MP3 conversion as well, but I've changed my mind on that now too. Some days I'll be skyping with a client going over the final tweaks to a mixdown I'm doing for them, and it would definitely save me time to have this ability as part of the render options. Sure you can do it in another app for free, but when you have to do it multiple times in one project, and then for mulitple projects in one days, it adds up to a lot of time it would save me.

[dna598]

Needs slicing to be NON cumbersome

[rcpunker]

it would save having to jump back and forth between apps (or long winded workarounds) to do simple things like normalizing, adding fades permanently, specific gain changes, etc.

^This is for why I go ask the question on the poll. I somehow got irritated on the other day going back to forth to the Wavosour editor that the KVR forum told me to go use.
And I am not asking all much in a Wav Editor. Mostly of the simple things mention by Tarekith like the normalizing or customize dB amounts or fades even in the middle of a wav.

And to top it all off, my folders and items I edited were messy and unorganized so to mistake I deleted the wrong takes and I got mad.

[synnack]

no. there are many editors out there already, just hit the Edit button FFS. Ableton should focus on the DAW and live performance aspects they've already chosen to tackle.

same with an mp3 converter.

100% agree. Any developer time spent on a "wav editor" is critical money taken away from the actual mountain of features needed.

wav/audio editor a massive competitive waste of time.

[Forge.]

personally I haven't missed much from wave editors for a long time. But as always, it depends on the job and what you need it for.

one of the things that makes me not miss an audio editor is the easy way you can select sections of a clip in Live - no need to slice, you just select the section and either hit delete, or drag it to another track or CMD+E if you want it to be a separate clip

that feels quite similar compared to what I used to do in Wavelab, say if I was editing the breaths etc out of a VO recording, on wavelab I would select the area and hit space bar, in Live it's select>delete (in arranger) so it takes the same amount of time. Likewise, for destructive processing of small sections of a larger file, you could just select that section and drag it to another track, apply the effects, freeze, then drag the new clip over the section.... in Wavelab I would have to set up the effects differently in the effect rack just to process that section then bypass them the rest of the time, so again the process takes no longer in Live, possibly even quicker.

Maybe Normalise might be better if it was not only available in rendering, but even there I hardly ever use it.

Apart from that, what else is there you need a wave editor for specifically? I'm interested because as I say I haven't needed one in a while, apart from in conjunction with a video program like Vegas.

And I am not asking all much in a Wav Editor. Mostly of the simple things mention by Tarekith like the normalizing or customize dB amounts or fades even in the middle of a wav..

again, in Live:
1. select the section you want to customize
2. cmd+E
3. adjust volume in the clip view

or for fades in the middle of a Wav:
1. cmd+E to slice the middle
2. adjust fades either side

of course this is all in arrange, but you can easily freeze then drag the frozen clip to a new audio track and it becomes a new audio file which can of course be used in session.

[rcpunker]

I don't like those idea of switching up to Arrange view then back up to Session view. If I could edit into Session view of my Audio file with a Built in (on the Live screen) editor would be so happy. Your way on doing it with CMD E in Arrange view is a good tip,and I give thanks on you for that. But, let me ask it about this. For one situation I record my Acoustic Bass guitar, the mic pick up my palm pounding on the body, I need to go back and wanting to quickly remove those unwanted making noises. by the CMD E you suggest, that would be hard on to do? I would have to split up the file? Then delete the unwanted noise,then move the files remaining on together? Then consolidate them? I rather stick it out with Wavosour.

BUT, if Live 9 would have the editor at a click of a button in the Session View, with the option to delete a certain highlighted part,THEN have a preference to join the remaning of the audio file to AUTOMATICALLY join together and SAVE.......would save my whole entire life.

[Machinesworking]

No, for simple reasons:
There are no third party ways to add a MIDI event list to Live,
There's no way to add multiple Automation choices (Touch, Latch, etc.) to Live.
No way to add Sysex or improve on Follow Actions, or strengthen it's performance features (IE improve the handling of live software instruments in Live) and so on.

There are however two track editors, mp3 converters, and plenty of very arguably more complex and amazing third party VST/AU instruments and FX.
So I don't wish for Live to have something that is easily done outside of Live.

[Forge.]

I don't like those idea of switching up to Arrange view then back up to Session view. If I could edit into Session view of my Audio file with a Built in (on the Live screen) editor would be so happy. Your way on doing it with CMD E in Arrange view is a good tip,and I give thanks on you for that. But, let me ask it about this. For one situation I record my Acoustic Bass guitar, the mic pick up my palm pounding on the body, I need to go back and wanting to quickly remove those unwanted making noises. by the CMD E you suggest, that would be hard on to do? I would have to split up the file? Then delete the unwanted noise,then move the files remaining on together? Then consolidate them? I rather stick it out with Wavosour.

BUT, if Live 9 would have the editor at a click of a button in the Session View, with the option to delete a certain highlighted part,THEN have a preference to join the remaning of the audio file to AUTOMATICALLY join together and SAVE.......would save my whole entire life.

I would argue that swtiching to an external editor is more hassle than hitting TAB and going into arrange. I know what you're saying about being able to work directly on the wave in session would be good, but I can't see that happening to be honest. At most maybe one day we will get cut/copy/paste type functionality. But then who knows, silence selection might be good too.

But in your example there actually is a way to do what you want in session view with clip envelopes. If the envelope view is not showing, there is a little E bottom left that opens it, then you can press the volume button and switch to the draw tool (CMD+B) and draw in envelopes to turn the volume all the way down when the clicks occur

but yes, in arranger it's dead easy - you don't even need CMD+E for that job, just select the area you want rid of and hit delete

[CFM]

I've never used one for a long time. The only thing I feel it could be useful for is if it was like (but better) than the old Roland VariOS concept.

[mholloway]

the argument that there are readily available wave editors that can be launched via live's "edit" button it completely lost on me, I hate waiting for separate program to open, I hate jumping to a different UI...I want to to quick, easy edits inside live, integrated with live's usual browser, UI, etc, and w/o having to jump back and forth to arrangement (e.g. the arrangement-splice trick).

native wave editor is probably what I want most for live 9. based on my particular needs, it's vastly more important than the mythic clip-level automation.

-M

[Forge.]

the argument that there are readily available wave editors that can be launched via live's "edit" button it completely lost on me, I hate waiting for separate program to open, I hate jumping to a different UI...I want to to quick, easy edits inside live, integrated with live's usual browser, UI, etc, and w/o having to jump back and forth to arrangement (e.g. the arrangement-splice trick).

native wave editor is probably what I want most for live 9. based on my particular needs, it's vastly more important than the mythic clip-level automation.

-M

but what edits do you need that you can't do?

[mholloway]

the argument that there are readily available wave editors that can be launched via live's "edit" button it completely lost on me, I hate waiting for separate program to open, I hate jumping to a different UI...I want to to quick, easy edits inside live, integrated with live's usual browser, UI, etc, and w/o having to jump back and forth to arrangement (e.g. the arrangement-splice trick).

native wave editor is probably what I want most for live 9. based on my particular needs, it's vastly more important than the mythic clip-level automation.

-M

but what edits do you need that you can't do?

Just look at Cubase's native wave editor, it has a zillion features you can't replicate in live, from simple to fancy (like pitch correction). On a basic level, I frequently want to cut up and re-arrange parts, like in a dialog sample, or I want to insert silence in between parts or cut out space between other parts, changing the overall timing -- yes, I can do this in arrangement, but as I've said I do not like that workflow and the result is a clip, not a newly rendered wave. Frequently also I just want to normalize a movie dialog sample, no dice there, either.

But perhaps most of all, Cubase's wave editor allows you to use plug-in vst FX as "process fx" which get hard rendered. This is hugely useful when I'm producing vocals and want a one-time effect here, a different one-time effect there (my style of music, industrial, has lots of quick-edit, one-time vocal effects that come and go through a track) -- live only provides a real-time fx chain, which requires having lots of active, automated devices that are only used once or twice to acheive this effect, which is a huge waste of space and cpu and work-time. With process-edits, I can select parts of the wave, apply the relevant effect, save the wave...done. It can't possibly be argued that it's just as easy in live, where the same result requires transfering a clip to arrangement, chopping it up onto seperate tracks, inserted the relevant fx, freezing, flattening, re-arranging the pieces into one clip again, consolidating, then dropping it back in session...aggh. That's WAY more work for what should be a simple process, just select area of wave, right-click, choose effect, apply, select new area, right-click....you get the idea. I really miss that functionality in Cubase, but I'm very much a one-DAW songwriting/producer.

-M

[Willyum]

I want Ableton to focus on putting 'Variable Time Stretch' in Simpler/Sampler.

As for the Editor...
I like to keep things simple in my work flow... I use Live's 'Consolidate' feature! I edit my sounds to taste, Freeze the track, move to my 'Edited-Sounds track then right-click Consolidate... It saves your edited sound as a new file. DONE!!!

That's 3 clicks total... Someone on this board showed how to do it in 2 clicks, but I forgot how... How would a sample editor make it easier than this???

Now Back to 'Variable Time Stretch'. The same time stretch algorythms in Clips should be carried over into Sampler/Simpler (and Slice-to). It's not like it's far fetched... you can already assign Clips to your midi keyboard and play them... you just cant play them into a midi clip and have the full functionality of it being an real instrument. (the Variable part just means that it would respond to song tempo)